Essential Form

Curated by Lori Bartman and Chuck Thurow, this exhibition featured the work of five Chicago area artists exploring reductive issues in abstraction. Working outside the rigid intellectual minimalist approach pursued by many artists in the 1970’s, these artists responded to form, scale, surface ad materials in personal, intuitive ways rather than strictly adhering to formal theories.

Artist David Jackson worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Micronesia after finishing his MFA at the School of the Art Institute. He traveled extensively, and his work in this exhibition was informed by traditional woodworking methods, indigenous crafts and materials. Rachel Hibbard used natural forms as a point of departure for “objects” in her paintings. Her sculptures took over an ambiguous space; separated from context, they were transformed into objects of mystery, full of reference and poetry, yet mildly disconcerting. Hibbard categorized her work as circular and contextual- with contextual perceptions derived from syntax imposed by time and space and the circular elements of experience characterized as intuitive and non linear. Charles Kurre utilized measures of volume, mathematical equations, and tight spatial restrictions. Kurre’s work played with a sort of representation of dark matter that suggested familiar objects. Bonnie Hughes and Herb Potzus, both graduates of the University of Illinois – Chicago, presented works that moved beyond the rectangular frame into more complex, multiple panel pieces. Both artists explored issues concerning the evocative power of color relationships and forms.